Make the Most Out of Education

How to Make the Most of Your EducationYou can love school, and still love yourself

Education is a miracle, something I’ve resolved from a decade centered around attending and preparing for school. I’ve celebrated it from the beginning; in Kindergarten, I wrote a surprisingly non-satirical poem entitled “School Is The Best” about my joy for it. I am amazed at how euphoric I become once immersed in a discussion about Renaissance art, when I feel a strange flutter of understanding as I read e.e. Cummings in a literature book, when I can prance around lab counters playing with Sodium Bicarbonate. How did the Ancient Romans even build those aqueducts? How? Why?Of what desire, what genius? The wonderful thing is- I know how Joan of Arc felt! I know that Michelangelo wasn’t excited to paint the Sistine Chapel! I know, forever and ever, that the sum of a triangle will always be one-hundred and eighty degrees.

Yet, lately what frustrates me most in my school experience is the lack of focus on the joy of education. Instead, there is an obsessive impulse to utilize school as some sort of elitist tool. She-who-went-here-and-here and He-who-is-going-to-that-school is the new talk around the corridors. But why? Ask yourself this: Why does it matter so much?

I think a lot of the hatred for school I’ve encountered among my peers stems from a doubt about its fundamental benefit to a person, in terms of individuality. If everyone’s life goal is just a prestigious college, then a job, how can everyone be happy? How can people who don’t conform to that dream enjoy their education?

Most parents and students give their time to ruminating on the impact of grades to a college admissions administrator-not the student. Many are not working hard in school for the unadulterated sake of education, but rather to impress a paper-flipper in an office.

These people who place their confidence and self-image in a stranger’s hands are ill-advised indeed. And this is so dangerous.

It is a crime to the individual to build up a personality solely in hope of impressing colleges and teachers at Back to School night. Perfection doesn’t exist in people, and each time you prove fallible in this image you’ve built up,you become tarnished.

I want you to go to school in gratitude. I want you to realize what a special place it is, that almost every day our brains are allowed to expand and we can grow as people. Everyday, something denied to almost all of our forefathers is redeemed in us. Respect your ancestors, will you? Respect your ancestors for giving you a life as beautiful as this-attending school-having these opportunities. Respect them for giving you a past that allowed a present as such, growing full and ripe of wisdom.

A great education doesn’t require the school or class to have a certain name, and it doesn’t even require a good grade. A great education requires a passion from the student’s perspective, an interest in educating yourself. Passion can supersede every ounce of trained interest. Remember that. Passion almost always equals success.

Make the most of your education by appreciating it for the privilege that it is.

Make the most out of education by making goals, by exceeding limits, by challenging ideas. Do it all.

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